I've heard my friends with kids complain about moving the clocks forward and back for years so I knew there was something to it. When I talked to my neighbor (a mom to be) yesterday morning we mentioned it, but I brushed it off saying I think spring forward is worse cause the babies lose an hour.
Let me take an aside here to mention that within the past week and a half or so we adjusted Matthew's schedule a bit. Since he doesn't need to eat every 3 hours anymore I was able to move his first daytime feed back an hour, which moved his naps back an hour, which by bedtime meant that he took two good naps during the day instead of the short hold-him-over nap at 6:00 because he just couldn't quite stay up until my 7:00-imposed bath and 7:30 bedtime. He has been awesome since then. He sails through the day and it only frustrates me slightly that it took me 5 months to get my poor baby on a schedule that actually works with his rhythms rather than my clock. He goes down for naps in seconds now, naps for hours instead of the 30 min max he was doing before, and is back to sleeping through the night consistently. He feeds well and is likely less bloated since I'm not cramming my boob in his ever-willing mouth every 3 hours. I have built in time for showers, chores, cooking, and even reading this week. It has been heavenly.
Back to the time change... I put Matthew down at 7:30 like always, went out like a light. We had a pretty big Sunday planned- church, with a first-time trip to the baby nursery for Matthew, and then lunch and Bucs game with my best teacher friend and her family in the afternoon. I figured with the extra hour I was gaining in sleep I would read a little bit in my book, The Help, which is just as good as everyone said and I can hardly put it down. I went to bed at nearly 11:00, which is pretty late for me these days. I woke at the new 3:00, with the sudden realization that we wouldn't really get an extra hour of sleep, but that after his 12 hour stretch Matthew would be up an hour earlier- and therefore back to that horrid schedule I just adjusted. The perfect 9:30 church service to end at 10:30 which coincides with his nap would now be a 9:30 nap he would never take a church, and he would likely be messed up when we went to Janice's at 12:30. I figured he would need that third nap again and I had no idea how to fix it.
Right then I heard him wake up to a clock that said 3:00, him thinking it was 4:00. That 4:00 hour is usually my cutoff time to give his first feed of the day, any earlier and he will likely wake up again before his normal between 8-8:30 time. I decided I would try to get him to go back to sleep and I wouldn't feed him until our clock said 5:00, which to him is 6:00 and generally later than he usually goes. I wasn't sure if he would be game for this plan. After about 10 minutes he went back to sleep and I raced down to the computer and googled "babies and time change" only to find a wealth of depressing advice.... "my kids are messed up for a week when we move the clocks... gaining an hour just means up an hour earlier... put them to bed an hour later... no, put them to bed an hour earlier (for clocks back?, yes)... start modifying the schedule a week in advance (whoops).... move the bed time 15 minutes each night for a week... forward or back? yes and yes... go cold turkey." Crap!
I guess cold turkey was the advice I had. I felt somewhat confident that if I could hold him off until 5:00 to eat that he would sleep another 3 hours, not realizing the difference in the hour, just its relation to the two up times. I tossed and turned now realizing that if he were going to be up at his new 7:00 time, I needed to be up even earlier to shower and get ready for church, but instead I stayed up late to read my book, did internet research at 3:00, did make that 5:00 feed, but felt tired despite this coveted extra hour of sleep!
To my surprise I woke up at the new 8:15 (his internal clock's 9:15) and he hadn't made a peep. The stupid squawking sandhill cranes were going at it and woke me up. I now realized church was out of the question as I didn't have time to shower and feed Matthew regardless, and Alex texted me that his relief at work was coming in late meaning he would be late for church. Not a great day to try for church. I went in to check on Matthew and there he was, happy and content, awake and smiling at me while grabbing his feet. BLESS THOSE room darkening shades! He did it, my precious baby didn't even notice the time change, and all I did was fret over a bunch of stuff in the middle of the night that didn't even happen- an inherited curse from my mom.
We are still on schedule for today, like clockwork. I hope this means we took care of that hour in one night instead of gradually. Didn't make it to church but we're off to see the Heidens.
P.S. when driving home from the Heidens at 6:00 Matthew decided to fall asleep thanks to the early darkness. Whoops- 3 naps today. Prayers for tonight.
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